


shallow ocean floor

by inexorableformation



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Father-Daughter Relationship, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, dont take this as medical advice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26089258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexorableformation/pseuds/inexorableformation
Summary: not everyone is always ill
Relationships: Reaper | Gabriel Reyes & Sombra | Olivia Colomar
Kudos: 26





	shallow ocean floor

**Author's Note:**

> as i said in the tags i dont know shit dont take any of this as medical advice im like wow yall stay hydrated pog
> 
> anyway ghost owl dad best dad

Sombra groans into her pillow at the knock on the door.

"No," she mumbles and then, louder. "No! I'm not here."

There's a small pause and she presses her face down into the covers again until the world goes dark and the burning behind her eyes relents. Her breath rattles in her ears but it's loud, too loud, the pulsing pain-

"I need to talk to you," Reaper says from outside her door. "And no, it can't wait."

"I'm not here, didn't you listen to not me?"

Sombra hears an exasperated sigh just before the coughing fit shakes through her. Reaper goes quiet and she drags the covers over her head, curls up around a second pillow and hugs it to her chest. The feverish sweat beads on her brow and she gnashes her teeth together before the haze of exhaustion dulls the ache. Something, something, something wrong on the inside.

"Do you need anything?" Reaper asks from outside. A neutral tone.

Sombra thinks of dying in a ditch, the wet soil clinging to skin until the last of life drains from it. Into the earth. Into the water. She sighs. Taps her holographic screens without ever looking over. Smoke moves quietly but the door doesn't.

"What is it?" she asks and it's almost unintelligible even to her. After a few moments of silence she cranes her neck, forces her eyes open. No one. Her head spins but before it can spiral further the shadows coalesce.

"Make up your mind," she slurs. "Do you want to talk to me or-"

Reaper places a glass of water on the nightstand to her left.

"Drink something first. Are you allergic to any painkillers?"

Sombra blinks.

"No?"

Two small medicine packages next to the glass.

"One of them is specifically for headaches," Reaper said. "Do you have a fever? I think the other one is supposed to help with that."

Sombra nods very slowly. Shuffles to the side until she can grab the pills as well as the glass. The water is gone before she fully processes how it tastes.

"I'll get some more," Reaper says. "You don't look like you should be walking around."

She doesn't protest. Her tongue is glued to the roof of her mouth and her throat sandpaper. No time passes. It takes an eternity. She drinks water from a bottle and the sickly heat in her head eases. Coughs and the world still turns.

"Don't tell the doc."

"I won't," he says before she even finished the sentence, too quick, too quick. "Try to get some rest."

"What about-"

Sombra interrupts herself as she winces at the feeling of vertigo. Cringes and squeezes her eyes shut again.

"I'll think of something to tell them," Reaper says. "Don't worry about it."

"Hnghh."

"I can be back later if you need anything else."

Sombra debates. Dying in a ditch with a mouth full of rainwater, an electric dagger in her spine, a fleeting thought of home. Then, help. Then, smoke.

"Do you need to be somewhere right now?" she asks.

Reaper pauses. His presence is fleeting. He stays.

"Just like hang out for a bit," Sombra mumbles. "Being ill gets boring."

A huff to her left.

"Sure."

He follows her vague gesturing and the far side of the mattress dips after a few seconds. Sombra glances over and shifts with an ache in her lungs.

"You can't get sick anymore, right?"

"I'm immune to illnesses aside from what I already have."

"Brag about it."

Reaper laughs. He settles on his back at the edge of the bed. As she coughs he tenses, clicks his claws as he crosses his arms over his chest.

"Aw, isn't that sweet," she snickers but it mellows quick. "You actually do worry about me."

He makes a noncommittal noise. Stares up at the ceiling as her breathing rattles and calms again eventually.

"I already owed you one, though," Sombra tells him. "No need to overdo it, jefe."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Yeah, yeah, it's not a debt. So you've said."

"I haven't had this kind of illness since the SEP," Reaper says. "But my son did."

Sombra stares into the dark of the covers, the faded colors of the pillowcase. Exhaustion scatters stars all across the fabric, all across her and the best laid plans. You shouldn't tell me that, she doesn't say.

Instead, "Lucky me, then, that you're a softie. And not a fan of the doc."

Reaper hums.

"You can't let her answer one question. She'll find twenty more she needs to ask."

Sombra squeezes her pillow a little tighter and forces down a yawn. Digs her nails into the soft material and part of her arm, too. Nothing gives. The leaden weight within her bones keeps her motionless.

"What did she promise you, jefe?"

Reaper clicks his tongue and behind the mask it sounds like the crack of bone.

"Something she technically abided by."

"But what was it?"

"Time," he says and shrugs. "Essentially."

Sombra nods and the pull of the fever is too strong to keep her eyes open once again. She slumps and drags her blankets over her head until the light barely filters through to her.

"So when's she gonna die, hm?"

It gets a laugh out of him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, are you still pretending to be loyal to Talon?" Sombra asks. "You don't do a good job of that, Gabe, you worry too much and don't hit enough easy shots."

"And you're taking a risk."

"Pays off sometimes."

"You're _ill._ Go to sleep, kid, if you want to talk treason we can do that another day."

Sombra coughs up a lung.

"I would never commit a crime."

"Right," Reaper says and gets up. "How could I forget."

He remembers to have footsteps this time and moves towards the door, hesitates before he reaches it.

"If you start getting worse-"

"I'll call you, yes."

Reaper goes silent for a good while.

"Sure," he says. "You can do that."

The joke dies on her tongue. Water under no bridge and she was dying on her own because of something she couldn't control, because nothing is ever fair, because the hardest work isn't always enough. Her spine, in tact. Her spine, malfunctioned. Lay dead silent in the dirt as the water gathered in her mouth, the mud bit into bleeding choking cuts. The searing, blinding, easing pain as the talons of the owl lifted her up from a shallow grave.

"Thanks, Gabe," she says and curls around the pillow. The fever swallows the rest of her words because her head still swims. Suddenly there's no punchline.

"Get some rest," Reaper says.

Sombra lets the fever carry her into dreams. She lives.

"Gotcha," she mumbles into the crook of her arm. "Gotcha."


End file.
